Prayer for the New Year

Lord, grant us in all our tasks your help,
in all our doubts your guidance,
in all our weaknesses your strength,
in all our dangers your protection,
and in all our sorrows your consolation.
Give us the kind of faith
that will enable us to live our joyfully
the mystery of our fragile human condition,
which sees us suspended between earth and heaven,
between time and eternity,
between nothingness and infinity.

Amen

Finding One’s Work

I think it is a great blessing when people find their work.
I often feel that I am as rich as Croesus, not in money
but rich because I have found work.
In that work I have something
to which I can devote myself heart and soul,
and which gives meaning and inspirations to my life.
Even though I have lots of difficulties
and there are many gloomy days in my life
I count myself among the fortunate .
This is not the road on which one perishes,
this is a powerful stream that will bear be safely to port.

God’s call is mysterious;
it comes in the darkness of faith.
It is so fine, so subtle,
that it is only with the deepest silence within us
that we can hear it.
And yet nothing is surer or stronger,
nothing is so decisive and overpowering,
as that call.
This call is uninterrupted:
God is always calling us.


Carlo Carretto

Today we are in danger of being drowned in bad news.
Jesus began his ministry by announcing good news.
What was this good news?
That the kingdom of heaven had come.
The kingdom stands for the fulfilment of promises,
the fullness of God’s blessings,
in short, the new order of things.
Forgiveness is available. Recovery is possible.
God’s love is unconditional
and is available to us in Christ.
All we have to do is recognise our need,
and seek his help with humility and sincerity.
Unless we repent we cannot hear the good news.

Ideally words should always be preceded by deeds.
When people who have done something
begin to speak ,people listen.
Their words carry enormous weight
They have real authority
The weakness of a lot of words arises from the fact
that they are not preceded, or accompanied,
or even followed by deeds
At the root of innumerable wrongs in our world
is the discrepancy between word and deed.
It is the weakness of churches ,parties and individuals.
It gives people and institutions ,split personalities.
Lord, grant what we have said with our lips,
we may believe with our hearts,
and practice with our lives.

A Lonely Place

Jesus often went off to a lonely place to pray.
Yet the same Jesus who prayed in lonely places said,
“When you pray, go into your room,
and pray to your Father in secret.”
This means that the lonely place
is not necessarily a place far away,
or that by “room” he means four walls
that separate us physically from others.
The room is the room of our innermost heart.
This room is with us at all times.
We should make it a place to which we can go
to find rest and spiritual recovery
when the world is too much with us.
Then we will discover that the inner room
is not empty after all, but is occupied
by the God of love who dwells in us all.

Touching

Many of us are afraid to touch other people
We give a few coins to a beggar
But make sure there is no contact between us,
Not even eye - contact.
Jesus didn’t stand off or keep his distance
He wasn’t afraid to touch others.
He touched lepers, sinners, sick people
And even the dead.
Physical contact is precisely what gives people
Especially sick and wounded people,
A sense of warmth and joy.
By the very act of touching another person,
We accept that person exactly as he or she is.
Lord, give us a warm heart and kind hands.

Forgiveness is like the child’s dream of a miracle.
Through forgiveness what is broken is made whole again,
what is soiled is made clean,
and what is lost is found.
Nothing greater can happen to a human being
than that he or she is forgiven.
Those who are forgiven are no longer trapped in their past.
They are set free – free to move forward again.
The Lord not only forgives our sins,
but helps us to learn from them.
We learn about our own weakness.
We learn about the goodness of God.
And we learn to be compassionate towards others who sin.

Each year the trees give us a lesson in renewal.
First the bud, then the blossom, and finally the shoot.
Spring dresses the trees in a new robe,
and makes them young again.
But this is only possible because in Autumn
they let go of their old leaves,
and in between endured a period of nakedness.
Lent is in the springtime of the spirit.
Lord help us not to be afraid to let go of old habits,
and to face our spiritual poverty,
in order that you may renew us, and so at Easter
we will feel young again in our discipleship.

Jesus often went into the hills to pray.
He preached his most famous sermon from a hilltop.
He was transfigured on Mount Tabor,
died on Mount Calvary,
and ascended to heaven from Mount Olivet.
It seems that he loved hills and mountains.
Why was this?
Was it because he grew up among the hills of Galilee?
Or was it because heights enlarge our vision
and cause our spirit to soar?
Lift us up, strong Son of God, that we may see further.
Strengthen our faith that we may see beyond the horizon.
An when the valley close us in,
help us to remember the view from the hilltop.

The following prayer was found written
over the door of a church:
“Lord, make the door of this house
wide enough to receive
all who need human love and fellowship,
narrow enough to shut out
all envy, pride and strife.
Make its threshold smooth enough
to be no stumbling block to children,
nor to straying feet.
Make this house a house of prayer
and a gateway to your kingdom.

The Light of Christ

In Christ there is no trace of darkness.
His light shows up the darkness in us.
His truth shows up our lies.
His integrity shows up our falseness.
His generosity shows up our selfishness.
His peace shows up our conflicts.
His openness to others shows up how closed we are.
However, we should not be afraid of his light.
Rather, we should rejoice in it.
Compared to his light other lights
are mere flares in the night or candles in the wind.
Christ, radiant Light of the world,
guide our steps in the way of truth and goodness,
and lead us through the gloom of this world
to the kingdom of unfailing light.

Each of us is like a grain of wheat planted by God.
Just as a grain of wheat must die so as to produce a harvest,
so we must die to self in order to bear the fruits of love.
This dying to self is a gradual process
and happens in little ways.
Every act of humility involves dying to pride.
Every act of courage involves dying to cowardice.
Every act of kindness involves dying to cruelty.
Every act of love involves dying to selfishness.
Thus the false self dies, and the true self,
made in God’s image is born and nurtured.
It is by giving that we receive
it is by forgiving that we are forgiven;
it is by dying that we are born to eternal life.

Jesus said: “I am the Good Shepherd;
the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”
Jesus did not have to suffer and die.
He had a choice.
He chose to suffer and die because he cared
about the flock God had entrusted to him.
What Jesus wants from us is not our suffering,
but a life of love and service.
Such a life will inevitably bring suffering.
But Jesus supports all those who follow him
down the road of faithful love and generous service.

As we go through life we all experience little deaths.
We get a foretaste of death when we live
in bitterness, loneliness, sadness and despair.
In times like these the world closes in on us,
and we seem to have one foot in the grave.
But we also experience little resurrections.
When we know love, acceptance and forgiveness;
when we open our hearts to others and to life,
the world opens up and we emerge from the tomb.
Lord, may the splendour of your resurrection
scatter the shadows of death,
and enable us to walk in radiant hope
towards the kingdom where there are
no more shattered hopes or broken dreams.

Aristides, a non-Christian, had this to say about Christians:
“These Christians love one another.
They never fail to help widows.
They save orphans from those who would hurt them.
If a man has something,
he gives freely to the man who has nothing.
If they see a stranger, Christians take him into their homes and treat him as a brother.
If they hear that one of them is in jail,
or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer,
they all give him what he needs.
If it is possible, they bail him out.
If one of them is poor and there isn’t enough food to go around,
they fast several days to give him the good he needs.
We are dealing with a new kind of person.
There is something divine in them.”

Those who care about others pick up a lot of wounds.
There may be no great wounds,
only a multiplicity of little ones -
a host of scratches, wrinkles and welts.
But there can also be a lot of invisible wounds:
the furrows left on the mind and the heart
By hardship, worry and anxiety,
disappointments, ingratitude and betrayal.
These wounds are not things to be ashamed of.
They are badges of honour, they are proof of our love.
Jesus didn’t hide his wounds, neither should we.
By his wounds we are healed.

It is my hope that the local churches
and all the various groups within them,
will become the places where vocations are
carefully discerned and their authenticity tested,
places where young men and women are offered
wise and strong spiritual direction.
In this way, the Christian community itself
becomes a manifestation of the love of God
in which every calling is contained.
As a response to the demands of the new commandment
of Jesus, this can find eloquent realisation in
Christian families, whose love is an expression of
the love of Christ who gave himself for his Church.
Within the family, young people can have a
wonderful experience of this self- giving love
Families can be the primary and most excellent
seed-bed of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life

(From Pope Benedict’s message for vocations Sunday)

Lord, you said:
“I am the vine, you are the branches.
Separated from me you can do nothing,
but united with me you will bear much fruit.”
Thank you, Lord, for the bond you formed with us.
And thank you for the bond that exists among us
because of our union with you.
Thanks to this bond we have invisible riches
to share with one another.
Grant that we may never be separated from you,
so that we may produce in the world
the fruits of faith, hope and love.

If only the heart was right
we could give so much more.
But, alas, the heart is often empty.
It is often cold and unwelcoming.
It is often hard and unyielding.
It is often weighed down with worry.
It is often sad and lonely.
It is often in darkness.
It is often wounded.
And it is sometimes broken.
We have to heal the wounds of the heart
in order to be able to love.
Lord, touch our hearts and heal them,
so that we may be able to bear the fruits of love.

Amen.